Ab Urbe Condita
by effervesce
Summary: A bitter researcher traverses the aftermath of a war-torn Sinnoh to find the fabled god with the power to bring her brother back to life.


(( disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. ))

AN: so this is my first fic, my take on the Pokeverse diverges a bit from the canon but we'll see how it goes.

**Ab Urbe Condita**

"Human habitation of Sinnoh is estimated to have begun when Sinnoh was created. It is stated that pokémon and humans led separate lives, but always helped each other, existing in a peaceful symbiosis." - Sinnoh: A History of Harmony

— _Chapter One: A Young Girl, a Professor, and a Story_

* * *

People on the streets didn't really talk to each other much any more. They used to, with bright conversations or soliciting plugs or bitter insults or leery catcalls: the content didn't matter, the point is that there were things worth saying, and people wanted to be a part of the thrum of life.

Then again, it seemed disrespectful to show signs of life while the memories of the dead were still fresh in everyone's minds. And the armored knights didn't help. They usually kept to their tight patrols around the Canalave Castle, but now circled around the city walls instead, bringing them closer to the townspeople and making everyone more skittish than usual.

People eyed them warily as they passed, keenly aware of the flaming mounts they rode and the gleaming swords they had sheathed.

The ponyta that knights rode may have bore a striking physical resemblance to their wild, threatening kin, but their relationship was more like that of a poisonous snake and its harmless cousin that simply wore the same colors. These ponyta had long since been domesticated, and countless of generations of their lines had spent their lives in the service of humans. They'd been bred specifically for their size, and generations of passivity had rendered them relatively weak with regards to their fire-breathing capabilities.

None of that really mattered to the townspeople. Semantics like that didn't matter when you've had family members unwillingly cremated by a creature of the same species.

I made eye contact with the boy manning the shop, one of the only ones still left standing. One of its walls had been blackened, clipped by a stray fork of electricity, but it was still standing.

I didn't have to say anything; he recognized my face and knew what I was here for. Or, at least, he thought he did.

When he reached for a bottle of painkillers, ensconced under the counter to discourage looters, I shook my head and pointed to the locked refrigerator of preserved food.

"Three of the drumsticks, please." I winced at the rasp of my voice; must have inhaled some of the lingering Stun Spore in the air by accident.

Eliot, whose name I knew because we'd gone to school together before the war really reached its climax and the schools had to be shut down, unlocked the case and withdrew five cellophane-wrapped bundles, an apologetic look in his green eyes.

Before I could tell him not to, he said, "I'm sorry about your brother."

I let the gossamer words hang in the air between us for a moment, not so much for effect, but rather because I needed a minute to catch my breath. "Thanks. I'm sorry about your dad."

He opened his mouth to say 'you too', then shut it audibly, evidently deciding that it was a little too morbid for him to have to use a commonplace phrase like that for a circumstance like this. Instead, he handed me my purchase and didn't bother glancing down at the coins I'd handed him before he pocketed them.

I told him that the shop was looking nice, and he shrugged, eyes roving over the poorly patched cracks. His father would've done a better job; he'd been a carpenter before he'd been drafted for the war. His mother wasn't tall enough to reach the higher fissures.

We exchanged awkward goodbyes.

I picked my way back through the rubble, resolutely avoiding eye contact with the knights and their hellish horses. One of them had accosted Linus Woods, a young leather worker, and was shaking him down about some fault in the saddle he'd bought. Linus's girlfriend looked like she wanted to say something, but Linus shot her a look that warned her to stay out of it.

A couple of coins exchanged hands, and the guard seemed to find it a sufficient form of reparation, brushing past the couple rudely to join the rest of his patrol.

I thought it was nice that, even in such dark times, disputes could be settled in such a civilized manner.

The body of the florist, Ms. Blake, the last victim before the detente, laid off to the side of the path, half-obscured by a heavy fern, except the fern didn't have enough leaves to mask the angry red fury swipes lining her sallow form.

The town hadn't had time to bury her yet.

The path forked, and I turned left, exhaling slowly. Eventually, I found myself standing on the front steps of a small white house. It's door gave when I pushed gently on it, and I made a note to berate Oak about remembering to lock up.

"In here," the old man called out cheerfully, hearing the creak of the door hinges.

I rolled my eyes. "I don't know where 'here' is, Oak," I told him, even though I was already moving through the house towards his voice. "And is that how you react when someone comes into your house uninvited? You advertise your location?"

"I'm old; what would you have me do, run?"

His voice had come from right behind me. Whirling around, I was slightly mollified upon seeing him holding a kitchen knife. Still, "Lock your damn doors. I'm helping you commit treason; the least you can do is try not to get caught."

I don't bother telling him about Linus, as much as I want to emphasize my point.

Thomas S. Oak rolled his own navy blue orbs at me from under a set of white-streaked blonde eyebrows. "I have Thor."

At his name, the final line of defense in question skittered into the room. His claws found no purchase on the smooth wooden floorboards and he inevitably crashed into Oak's calves.

I regarded the small blue-and-black-furred pokemon icily. It must've misunderstood my glare for warmth because it made its way, more slowly now, to my feet and sniffed. "He's the reason we're even committing treason, how does that help?"

Thor tilted his head and purred his species name helpfully.

"He made electricity the other day," Oak defended, crouching to thumb the shinx's chin.

I sighed and placed the bag of drumsticks beside him.

"I thought we said steak." Thor didn't seem to care either way, sinking his teeth into the meat with relish, tearing off strips of flesh from the bone like he was making confetti.

I focused on the fact that his teeth seemed longer than they had yesterday—he was growing at an exponential rate—and tried not to shudder. "The chicken was cheaper."

Leaving them in the living room, I sought out Oak's study. The aging man had been a professor before the war, and while the government's drafts had forced him out his beloved job, he'd kept his all his books, even the few banned texts on pokemon that didn't actively denounce them, as a big screw you to the king.

The book I was looking for was wedged at the end of the middle shelf, inconspicuously bound with red leather. It was a translation of writings from an early civilization, which made reading it a tedious task partially because some of the text had been lost to time, and partially because some of the phrases sounded strange to the modern ear.

I hooked a finger into its spine and unhinged it from its spot in a practiced motion like I'd done since my brother. There was an indent in the center of the armchair, and I went to make it worse.

That's how Oak found me once Thor had finished his meal, curled into the soft leather, thumbing through the pages and making my own notes in a separate notebook.

I looked up when I heard him come in, placing a red ribbon between the pages I was on so I could close the book.

"I'm not crazy," I told him before he could say anything. "I know what I saw. I know it's out there, and I need to find it."

Oak held his hand out, tacitly asking for my notebook. I'd marked down the page numbers and sources of any quotes that mentioned a god of death, crossing the ones that, once cross-referenced with other quotes, turned out to be more myth than truth.

His brow was furrowed with concentration as he flipped through the pages.

"There was once upon a time a civilization that worshipped gods of the elements," he admitted finally, then frowned and amended, "Well, according to stories, at least."

A flash of frustration made my hands shake. "You're the one who's always telling me to look for the truth in every story," I accused. "According to which story? It's not in your collection, is it."

I didn't need him to answer that; I'd already basically scoured every page in his library.

He shook his head. "No, I don't have it. It was one of the first books to be taken out of circulation, before anyone thought to hide away a few copies for the sake of knowledge."

It felt like someone had let all the air out of me. "So...there aren't any left?"

Oak looked distraught and shook his head, expressing the perfect mixture of sympathy and regret. Except he had that tell, a tiny nervous twitch of his left eyebrow.

I wracked my head for a reason he'd lie to me. And then I realized. "It's in the king's castle."

"Don't even think about it," Oak warned, looking decades older.

Hypocrite. Liar. A general asshole. I settled for: "You've never been afraid of breaking the law before."

There was a tiredness in his eyes as he worked his fingers against his temples. I could see in all the lines of his face just how much the last twenty years had bore down on him.

He tried again. "The king will kill you."

It was the worst line of persuasion he could have picked, because it was the one that I could counter with absolute certainty. "So? I've been killed before."

But he shook his head; while I had complete faith in what I saw, he did not, and he never failed to remind me how hard I'd hit my head that night. This time was no exception.

I rubbed my thumbnail, intent on not responding to the provocation. It would only set us off in a circular tangent.

"I'm leaving," I said finally after the silence between us had stretched long enough. I hadn't told hm everything because I needed his approval—it would've been nice, but I'd made up my mind a long time ago to go with or without his blessings.

"Take Thor."

The seriousness in his eyes made me choke back a derisive laugh. Thor sneezed, giving off the sparks that Oak had been bragging about.

My initial response, a brisk shut down of the idea paired with a passionate denouncement of murderous pokemon in general, died on my tongue.

Thor had something I needed and lacked: power, an arsenal of electric abilities that were as potent, if not more, than any sword. I guessed they were probably as effective as guns as well. We had one, a sleek little handgun that my dad had tucked away a long time ago in case he ever had to protect the house, but I'd never been allowed to touch it. I'd never seen anyone use one before either; by the time I was old enough to understand what guns were, the factories that mass produced them had been destroyed.

I also had my brother's sword, the standard issue one-handed steel piece that the royal army distributed to all drafted soldiers. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to use it.

Even more unfortunately, I knew from personal experience the destruction that wild pokemon could wreak, and even though we'd come to a ceasefire agreement while negotiations were carried out, there was a precarious shakiness to the bridge we were trying to build, and it might all come apart if some staraptor misinterpreted my intentions while I tramped through its territory.

The point was, I lacked the sheer strength necessary to forge a path in the Sinnoh wilderness. Therefore, Thor would be an asset.

"Fine," I conceded.

Oak got up and retrieved a red notebook from the top drawer of his desk. He handed it to me with a degree of reservation, fingertips that lingered on the cover a few seconds too long, and I knew the notebook was something important.

I eyed it uncertainly until he said, some of his usual cheerfulness re-entering his voice, "You have your pet project, I have mine."

At which point I eagerly tore into the lined pages, because Oak had been a veritable genius in the field of life science, and in my opinion, even though the scope of his research had been limited by the king and his council of nobles to aiding in the war effort, he was still a genius.

His notebook contained pages upon pages of drawings, which were usually accompanied by a series of numbers and facts on the opposite page.

"They're pokemon," I breathed, filled with a grudging reverence. Setting my personal feelings on the subject aside, it was an endeavor which no one would have attempted—or thought to attempt—before. Of course there were other books written on pokemon, know thine enemy and such, but they focused primarily upon the individual weaknesses of each species.

There was an entry on shinx. Oak had used the lines on the paper as a scale to turn the real-life thing into an illustration that would fit on a 9x11 sheet.

-_fur produces static, lights up when threatened_

_-electric type, cause: muscle contractions? source: forelegs?_

The rest of the pages were all like that, detailed quantitative and qualitative observations recorded in conjunction with his own conclusions and hypotheses that he wouldn't be able to test.

"You've been doing this for a really long time," I guessed. He must've started this when he was my age.

Bitterness tinged his smile. "My life's work."

I understood. All this effort to no end; no one was interested in anything about pokemon other than the latest news on ways to kill them, and, if anyone was interested, no way to distribute it because literature in circulation had to be approved by a council. It was a measure enacted to prevent pokemon sympathizers.

"I still don't understand how you can like them when they've done nothing but murder innocent people," I started, "but this is amazing, really, an accomplishment of the century."

Oak shrugged. He didn't look as consoled as I thought he'd be. Wasn't that what he wanted, to have someone recognize his work as great?

"You should probably leave during Ackley's execution, they'd going to make everyone watch it," he suggested in lieu of what he really wanted to say.

Charles Ackley, to be executed for treason against the crown. It was a shame, too; he had been a rising star in the ranks of the royal army.

I nodded in agreement. Yes, it was a good idea to leave without attracting the notice of the knights. Unauthorized travel was generally frowned upon, and I never liked being the center of attention.

* * *

Too confusing? Loved it? Hated it? Let me know!

In the next chapter: more world building and the narrator's guide for dealing with wild pokemon.


End file.
